Today's Lesson - Planning And Deadlines

You deadline for MARXISM is Jan 12th

Today use the Marxist lens questions to plan your response and identify key quotations


Questions for Analysis  - use to guide annotation

• Is there an outright rejection of socialism in the work?

• Does the text raise fundamental criticism about the emptiness of life in bourgeoisie society?

• In portraying society, what approximation of totality does the author achieve? What is emphasized, what is ignored? Why?

• How well is the fate of the individual linked organically to the nature of societal forces?

• At what points are actions or solutions to problems forced or unreal?

• Are the characters from all social levels equally well sketched?

• What are the values of each class in the work?

• What is valued most? Sacrifice? Assent? Resistance? Individuality?

• How clearly do narratives of disillusionment and defeat indicate that bourgeoisie values—competition, acquisitiveness, chauvinism—are incompatible with human happiness?

• Does the protagonist defend or defect from the dominant values of society? Are those values in ascendancy or decay?



Questions Raised By the Marxist Literary Lens - use to structure response

— How does the author’s social and economic class show through the work?

— Does the work support the economic and social status quo, or does it advocate change?

— What role does the class system play in the work?

— What role does class play in the work?

— What is the author’s analysis of class relations?

— Do characters overcome oppression? What’s the impact of this?

— What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?

— Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to the problems encountered in the work?

— In what ways does the work serve as propaganda?

— Does the literature reflect the author’s own class or analysis of class relations?

Today's Lesson - Planning and writing your independent study FOUR THINGS

By the end of today's lesson you need to have:

1. Prepared your AO1 by deciding on a question and having it agreed by me

2. Selected your author and text

3. Prepare your AO3 by

Researching the writer you have chosen’s autobiography – what events from his/her life may have affected their work?
What society is the text set in?
What society is the text written for?
Their attitudes to gender, social class etc.
Societies attudes to gender, social class etc. 

4. Prepare your AO4 by

Identifying the genre of your text
Researching the conventions of your genre

ALL the above needs to be posted to your blog so I can supervise your work. REMEMBER THE RULES

Drafting rules

Students must have sufficient direct supervision to ensure that the work submitted can be confidently authenticated as their own. This means that the teacher will review the progress of the work during research, planning and throughout its production to see how it evolves.

The teacher may provide guidance and support to students so that they are clear about the requirements of the task they need to undertake and the marking criteria on which the work will be judged. They may also provide guidance to students on the suitability of their proposed task, particularly if it means they will not meet the requirements of the marking criteria.

 

Today's lesson 7/11/15

In today's lesson you will

Complete all work on The Hollow Men
Post your three potential controlled assement questions
Respond to feedback on your Larkin essays

IMPROVING YOUR LARKIN ESSAY

1. Read my comments
2. For AO2, AO3 and AO5 Read Ellie Marfleet's essay
3. For AO2, AO3 and AO5 Read Grace Doughty's essay
4. For AO4 Use this guide to analysing quotations (designed for AS Lang but still suitable for Lit).
5. For AO1 and AO5 use this overview of Marxism and Marxist terms - aim to include a MINIMUM of 5 of these terms in your work.
6. To improve your AO2 and AO4 read this section of Monica Wormleighton's essay and notice how you analysis poetic devices and links them to a marxist interpretation

"In each of these four poems, Larkin uses caesura and enjambment to change the pace of the poem, thus changing the mood and also to emphasise key parts of emotions. In 'the large cool store', caesura and enjambment are both use to slow down the pace in order to reflect the mundanity of the proletariats lives in which they do the same thing each day. As these techniques are used throughout the poem and there is no change, it could represent that there is no change in their lives,'weekday world of those who leave at dawn...' showing that they are not proactive about making a change and are not going beyond the limits which society sets for them. In the poem 'sunny prestatyn' caesura and enjambment are used mainly in the second stanza. This stanza is where the mood and tone of the poem changes and Larkin used these techniques to emphasise the harsher statements, for example in the line 'a couple of weeks, and her face was snaggle-toothed' the uses of these techniques emphasises on the negatives and makes the readers opinion change. Similarly in 'this be the verse' the caesuras are used to emphasise the more shocking points Larkin in making. There is a caesura after the line 'they fuck you up' so that the reader stops to think about this point an interpret what the line is saying. Larkin used this so that the reader would be shocked. Again in 'essential beauty' a caesura is used for dramatic effect after the line 'of how life should be' to indicate to the reader that it isn't the reality and that the expectations of society are too high. A marxist critic would appreciate the use of this pause as they would infer this use of the technique as a way to highlight the delusion of the proletariats through the use of the advertisements." 

Any questions? Ask!

Example Essay

Read the question.  What did they have to do?
Read the introduction.  What do you notice?  Highlight what is good about it.
Read the rest of the essay.  Highlight where they have 'hit' the following:

AO2 – Explore how the writer gets his/her ideas across. How do they use language devices, structural devices, written form.

AO3 – Explore the contexts that influence the text: biographical, setting, cultural, social: attitudes to gender, race, social class, morality, religion.

AO4 – Show you understand that a text is influenced by its genre: poetry, prose, gothic, romance, realist, bildungsroman, romance, thriller, pastoral etc.

AO5 – Explore different critical interpretations: Feminist, Marxist. 

Creating a question; having a go.

Post 2-3 possible questions to your blog, clearly indicating the question that you prefer.

Make sure it is clear which text you will be writing about.